Pics of our AFL boys

by sarajune13 on Oct 31, 2005 7:47 PM PST

It's 85 degrees, it's October, and I'm watching baseball. <Sigh> This is bliss...I'm in the midst of driving from North Carolina to California, and I've stopped in the Phoenix area for a few days to catch a couple Arizona Fall League games. Here are a few of the pictures I've taken of A's prospects on duty in the AFL this year.

Andre Ethier gears up to swing at an incoming pitch.

Papago buttes behind Phoenix Municipal Stadium (one of my favorite places in the world!) frame Matt Lynch delivering a pitch.

Shane Komine, he of the sub-1.00 ERA, en route to another scoreless outing.

The all-Hawaiian A's battery of Shane Komine and Kurt Suzuki.

Daric Barton bends away from an inside pitch.

Marcus McBeth, converted from outfielder to pitcher this season, on the mound. This is the highest level at which he's pitched (he was just added to the Desert Dogs' roster when a Brewers pitcher went down last week), but he looked impressive -- though a little wild, none of the four batters he faced even made contact with any of his pitches, resulting in 1 BB followed by striking out the side.

Ethier takes a mighty cut. He was 3 for 6 in the game I went to today, and had some nice defensive plays in right field in Saturday's game.

Daric Barton looks comfortable manning first base as a pitch wizzes in front of him.

Shawn Kohn's side-arm delivery

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nice (if huge) pictures!

It gives me nice warm fuzzies to see them in the big league uniforms!

by Apricot on Oct 31, 2005 7:55 PM PST reply actions

very cool

i wish i was there

by catfish hunter on Oct 31, 2005 8:00 PM PST reply actions

awesome pix!

thanks for sharing!

i miss baseball!

"you know it's way cooler to be an A's fan" - billy beane to larry krueger

by gotgreen on Oct 31, 2005 8:15 PM PST reply actions

Aww, they look so ADORABLE.

Seeing young guys in the big-league uniforms... <sigh>. I love it.

Thanks for the pics! Those ROCK. Man.

Kohn... I want another sidearmer. So much. And I desire Komine on the big club just for the 'Hawaiian Punchout' sign.

Man. These kids are adorable.

"Baseball fans are junkies, and their heroin is the statistic." -Robert S. Wieder

by Kyli on Oct 31, 2005 10:21 PM PST reply actions

Great pics

Thanks, and I'm jealous that you're out there!

by OaktownTribesman on Oct 31, 2005 10:22 PM PST reply actions

No kidding

I miss baseball, and soon I'll be missing the sun as well.

Copernicus felt the same way about the geocentric crew.

by salb918 on Oct 31, 2005 10:30 PM PST up reply actions

Marcus McBeth

now that is a cool name. not quite lastings milledge, but still pretty damn good....

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on Oct 31, 2005 11:19 PM PST reply actions

Sigh

I love baseball. Those pictures make me dream about Spring Training even more. It's the best time of the year: relaxing, watching baseball when it's all fun and no stress, getting up close to the players, and enjoying the beautiful Phoenix weather.

Come soon Feb '06!!

by nycfan @ Athletics Nation on Oct 31, 2005 11:41 PM PST reply actions

Unbelievable

Great pics. Those young guys look great in A's uniforms, something about that is just so cool.

Two players i had never actually seen before (yeah, surprising) are McBeth and Komine. McBeth is such a cool name. I'll honestly admit i just assumed McBeth was white, Marcus McBeth sounds like a Shakespearean time British name. Anyways, the color doesn't matter, he still has a great name! He just looks like he would throw SOOOOO hard.

And Komine just looks plain stylin.... He's one of my new favorite prospects... How cool would that be to see Komine starting with Suzuki at catcher in a MLB game. Komine just looks straight up surfer dde..

RIP Bill King "By the Beard of Zeus!" "I don't know if you heard me counting. I did over a thousand"

by ohad on Nov 1, 2005 4:37 AM PST reply actions

Not to mention our all-Hawaiian battery.

I love it. Thanks, sj.

by ArakSOT on Nov 1, 2005 9:14 AM PST up reply actions

So glad you guys are enjoying them

And if you would prefer more normally-sized versions (sorry they are so enormous -- I reduced their size by quite a bit but it didn't seem to help much), here is a link where you can see a little slideshow.

It has been terrific being down here...the one sad moment was when I glanced back into the empty press box at Phoenix Muni and got choked up thinking that part of that space will be permanently vacant with no Bill King to fill it.

But there have been plenty of happy moments -- Ethier getting 3 hits yesterday, Komine's dominant pitching, Barton playing some very nice first base, and even seeing Jennie Finch in the stands (her fiancee/husband is a Diamondbacks prospect on the Desert Dogs).

In case anyone is able to make it to this area for a quick vacation in the next couple weeks, the AFL games are well-worth it -- admission is $6, there's no parking fee, and since no more than a couple hundred fans go to the games, you're guaranteed amazing seats.

by sarajune13 on Nov 1, 2005 10:45 AM PST reply actions

one quick, easy way to shrink

You can edit your diary and add width=50% to all your img tags.

for instance,

<$img src="http://homepage.mac.com/sarajune13/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/A's%20AFL/Andre%20prepares%20t o%20swing.jpg" width="50%">

(without the $)

gives

by Apricot on Nov 1, 2005 10:57 AM PST reply actions

Sweet!

Thanks, Apricot. This was my first attempt at posting pictures, and that will help mightily.

by sarajune13 on Nov 1, 2005 11:04 AM PST up reply actions

keep up the great work

love the photos.

By the way (my god what will it take to satisfy me?!), if anything, I think you made your photos too small now. <sheepish look>

I think you could get away with tweaking the 50% to be a little bigger...

by Apricot on Nov 1, 2005 1:11 PM PST up reply actions

Hehe

How do these look? I had them at 80% before, and now moved that up to 99%.

I noticed that even when I previewed them at 105%, they were still quite a bit smaller than the ginormous originals. Is there another tag I should add in there?

by sarajune13 on Nov 1, 2005 10:17 PM PST up reply actions

ah

that's what I get for short-cutting. The Width value can be a number like "640" to specify exact number of pixels. The "50%" is a percentage of the width of the actual page layout. In this case, AN opens with the three column look, so the pictures will never be wider than the middle column (100%). To make the bigger in absolute size, we need to use the numbers, e.g this one is with width="800". This wide picture will probably force the whole column wider forcing all the old "100%" pictures to be 100% of a wider column, and hence wider...

The best policy is to scale the pictures first befor uploading to your server... but fiddling with width values can salvage a too-big picture issue.

by Apricot on Nov 1, 2005 10:39 PM PST up reply actions

Cool

So much to learn. :) Thanks again, Apricot!

by sarajune13 on Nov 2, 2005 7:04 AM PST up reply actions

Question about Komine

How much of a "legit" prospect is he considered to be? I realize he's still fairly young.

by nycfan @ Athletics Nation on Nov 1, 2005 11:37 AM PST reply actions

About Komine...

Komine was an 02 9th round, though he's not so young anymore (he'll be 25 next year). He's able to dial it up to 95 but is generally 92 or so despite his size (listed as 5'8"). I believe he was injured sometime in 04' and only got in 50 or so innings this year, but the results were impressive(33k's in 31 innings at midland, and he's been great in the AFL). Obviously there will always be skepticism because of his size, but I think there's a chance he can be a decent starter in the bigs. It's more likely he'll end up as a reliever, but I'm rooting hard for him.

by Little Rickey on Nov 1, 2005 12:04 PM PST reply actions

Hudgens

Is Dave Hudgens the 1st base coach for the dogs? It sure looks like him.

Wish I could be there. It looks like ticket availability isn't much of a problem.

Joe Blanton is phat

by gojohn10 on Nov 1, 2005 7:16 PM PST reply actions

I think the 1B coach is a D-Rays player

There are only 3 coaches (manager, pitching, & hitting) on each team, so I've noticed that usually the manager coaches 3rd and a player coaches 1st. I'm pretty sure it was the same Devil Rays kid for all 3 games I went to, but I can't remember his game.

You can say that again about ticket availability -- there were 200 people at the day game I went to yesterday. You're guaranteed terrific seats, it's November, these are most of the top prospects in the country (according to the game notes, 70% of the kids who play here make it to the bigs), so it adds up to being just about heaven. :-)

by sarajune13 on Nov 1, 2005 9:59 PM PST reply actions